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# Maya Deren’s Short Films from the 1940s and ’50s Screen at the Norton Simon Museum
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/maya-derens-short-films-from-the-1940s-and-50s-screen-at-the-norton-simon-museum/
- Published: 2017-06-05T19:17:56.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:27:10.000Z
- Description: On June 9, the museum will host a screening of six of Maya Deren's short films that were milestones in the history of avant-garde cinema.
- Author: Matt Stromberg
- Tags: Art, Events, Norton Simon Museum, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:23 (2016, 2017, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/06/ges-and-maya-deren-2_valeska-hammid-c-hammid.jpg)

Galka Scheyer and Maya Deren (photograph by Alexander Hammid, © Estate of Alexander Hammid)

German-Jewish art collector and dealer Galka Scheyer was an indefatigable promoter of European modernism in California, predominantly the work of the “Blue Four”: Lyonel Feininger, Alexei Jawlensky, Paul Klee, and Vasily Kandinsky. After moving to the Bay Area in 1925, Scheyer settled in Los Angeles around 1930, surrounding herself with a diverse circle of friends that included experimental filmmaker Maya Deren and architect Richard Neutra, who designed her Hollywood Hills home (pictured above, with Deren).

In conjunction with its [exhibition on the influence of Scheyer](https://www.nortonsimon.org/exhibitions/2010-2019/maven-of-modernism-galka-scheyer-in-california/?ref=hyperallergic.com), the Norton Simon Museum will host [a screening of six of Deren’s short films](https://www.nortonsimon.org/events/2017/spring-2017/the-films-of-maya-deren-experimental-films-19431959/?ref=hyperallergic.com), milestones in the history of avant-garde cinema. Spanning the years 1943–1959, the program begins with “Meshes of the Afternoon,” a 16mm, low-budget, black-and-white fever dream that relocates Buñuel-style European Surrealism to sun-dappled LA. This is bookended with “The Very Eye of the Night” (1959), a split-screen film that pairs an ambient synth soundtrack with solarized footage of dancers. Contrasted with Deren’s earlier work, it proves just how expansive her radical cinematic vision was.

**When:** Friday, June 9, 6–7:20pm (free with admission)  
**Where:** Norton Simon Museum (411 West Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, California)

*More info* [*here*](https://www.nortonsimon.org/events/2017/spring-2017/the-films-of-maya-deren-experimental-films-19431959/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*.*